


losing you

by undeliveredtruth



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Idols, M/M, San Character Study, The summary is fairly self-explanatory I feel, Unrequited Love, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28752111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth
Summary: Wooyoung doesn't love him back.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	losing you

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a bit inspired by one of my favorite fics of all time, Flux. It's this incredible JJP fic, I recommend you all give it a read [ here, ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8445076/chapters/19347316) it will leave you with so many feels. Anyway... this was a bit tough for me to write for many reasons, but I didn't want to agonize over it anymore, so I'm just dropping it now. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it. :)

Six whispered words and an awkward pause, and San lost his best friend.

If he could go back, he’s sure that at some point, he would’ve done things differently.

From the first moment San walked into their practice room and his eyes landed on the new boy with messy hair and a mole under his eye fitting in like he had always been there, he would’ve avoided the eyes that fixed on his.

One month later, he would’ve ignored the telltale feeling in his stomach when Wooyoung reached a hand too close to him when San looked about ready to faint. Just like when San was 12 and his best friend’s older brother stepped out of the shower in just a towel, and San forced himself to avoid his eyes. And never came to his best friend’s house again.

But as all things go, Wooyoung is the biggest reason for which San was able to stand 18-hour practice days, throwing all he had into his dancing until Wooyoung’s look turned from concern to respect.

So maybe, San wouldn’t go back that far.

He’d go back to when he admitted to himself he was in love with Wooyoung.

Waking up to Wooyoung’s soft hair tickling his neck, his back pressed to San’s chest, San took a deep breath to release the knot tangled in his neck. Wooyoung had a nightmare the night before, and when he appeared at the foot of San’s bed, shaking him with a hand on his leg, San had woken up and wordlessly opened his duvet cover to let Wooyoung climb the ladder into his bunk. Wooyoung had just as wordlessly settled in, a whiff of his peach-scented shampoo drifting up San’s nose to settle in his half-asleep mind.

San wouldn’t have let him up. He wouldn’t have woken up and tucked closer into Wooyoung just to feel that comforting scent again. He would’ve put pause on his traitorous heart telling him that _this,_ this was it, that this is the only place he wanted to be, and that there was nothing else he wanted more than to be able to wake Wooyoung up with a kiss.

He would’ve stopped it. Put a big red indicator shouting at him in front of his eyes to look at it whenever those traitorous thoughts betrayed him once again.

Because _that_... that stood true, and from that moment on, kissing Wooyoung was the only thing on San’s mind whenever he looked at him.

Falling into bed with Wooyoung was the easiest part of falling in love with him.

The only thing that felt right—the slow, light steps into their room, the lights staying off, Wooyoung climbing into San’s bunk like he always did. Except this time, it was only San, Wooyoung, and the energy thrumming between them.

Wooyoung had laid on his side, faced San in the darkness where San had to guess the look in his eyes, and kissed him as gently as he had in the bathroom of their practice room. San’s arm wound around his waist, pressing with more intent on his lips, on his neck, on his chest, until Wooyoung’s leg was draped around both of his and San had already come, he didn’t even know when, could have been seconds before, could have been hours, because the only thing he had cared about were the soft breaths Wooyoung let in his mouth when he reached his own peak.

It felt right. For the first time in his entire life, San felt whole, cocooned in a space of his and Wooyoung’s own making.

Until it was over. Wooyoung didn’t leave his bed, had fallen asleep facing San with his dark hair splayed over San’s pillow, steady breaths in and out, peaceful, quiet, _beautiful._

Yet, San looked at him, and felt miles and miles away.

Come morning, Wooyoung was still there. San got up, moved over his sleeping frame, climbed down the ladder of his bunk, and left.

Or... maybe he hadn’t.

Maybe things hadn’t really changed.

The sexual tension was still there, thick enough to cut with a knife. A pull of Wooyoung’s hair, his finger tilting Wooyoung’s chin, Wooyoung’s hands around his waist.

And yet, San knew that those didn’t hold the same weight for Wooyoung as they did to him. They never had.

The only thing in his mind before everything, before the words slipped past his mouth, was that he was _terrified_ of something changing.

Was _terrified_ of losing this—all of this, the touches, the comfort, the serious discussions, the companionship, the _hey, I got you_ spoken in a thousand different languages and gestures.

But now, he almost wished something _had_ changed. Because if something had changed, something had been different, then maybe there was hope that their relationship could eventually evolve to there, to somewhere, become something else than what it was and what it is and turn to another plane of being where San meant to Wooyoung more than he did now.

But nothing changed. Wooyoung had felt the same about him before, and felt the same about him now.

And that same... was nothing like San felt.

San hadn’t lost his best friend because _Wooyoung_ had pulled away, or felt awkward, or felt different.

No. San had lost his best friend because months later, he himself couldn’t move on in the slightest.

And it begun to matter because he started to realize he didn’t think he ever would. Move on.

He didn’t think he ever could.

Six months after everything, San felt the same pull in his chest, the same searing pain travelling across his body every time he looked at Wooyoung and Wooyoung was still not his. Maybe worse, because that one shadow of doubt that had been there before, that maybe one day Wooyoung _could_ be his, was squashed for good the day where San opened his mouth and consciously trickled out the words.

Wooyoung still thought of them as best friends. Wooyoung still cared about him. Wooyoung still loved him just as intensely, just as much as a friend, if not even more, but not even Wooyoung, kind, soft Wooyoung could hide his hurt when San started to flinch from his touch and had steadily kept his room shut during their Saturday night ramen tradition.

Wooyoung had slowly gone to Seonghwa, long conversations in the elder’s room that San knew were about him by the pained, painful glances Seonghwa threw at him the next day.

 _If only I could love him back,_ he could almost see Wooyoung saying. San chuckled to himself, picking up the last spoonful of rice and shoving it in his mouth under Hongjoong’s watchful eyes. He would have justified it with something on his phone, but he was sure Hongjoong could tell San hadn’t scrolled down for the past ten minutes.

Hongjoong’s pitiful eyes had been something else when San broke down in his studio, curled into a ball on the floor and hiccuped through sobs that he didn’t think he could do it anymore. He couldn’t handle the pain anymore, couldn’t...

Yet, the next day he could. The pain had stayed exactly the same, but San had gotten up from his bed, an inch of a tougher self, enough to float and not drown, and had bared through the cold another day.

Had even learned how finding small moments of happiness could feel like in the middle of agonizing pain—not dimming it, not coming as a contrast, not providing hope, but stepping alongside, a beacon of light as a companion to an overwhelming mass of dark.

It felt stupid, most of the time. He felt stupid for feeling like such a pitiful human being, and in those days, he gave 110% of what he had in practice and had gone on stages and killed it so hard he knew there would be praise swimming on SNS the next day.

Because San was San, and no matter under what circumstances, the San San was most comfortable with was the San who was born to perform.

And who let nothing stand in his way.

He took those small moments of happiness and used them to perfect his craft, twisting and threading them into the himself on stage and beyond, on vlives, on shows, until they became a part of himself and they felt as natural as the well-practiced steps of their most popular songs. People loved them, and they loved to see them, and San had learned to do them so convincingly that he was able to put his own flair, embodying the performance until it became equated with himself, the definition of San in others’ eyes.

People saw San and no longer saw San—they finally saw what San wanted to show. And that?

That felt _great._

“You’re killing yourself.”

San blinked at Hongjoong.

Scrutinising eyes placated on him, San tucked his knees into his chest.

What did Hongjoong mean? San was doing better.

They finally had a lot of things lined up, performances and variety shows, which meant that San didn’t have time to think, which in turn meant that his moments of happiness started coming more often.

San started feeling _better._ That _was_ better, right?

“You’re not there anymore, San-ah. I look at you these days and I’m fucking _terrified_. I don’t see you anymore.”

San blinked again.

“Do you get what I’m saying?”

Not really, no.

“You’re just like... you look like you’re doing fine, but there’s nothing in your eyes, and I don’t know if you’re noticing, but you’re pulling away, and I don’t know what the hell’s happening or why you are like this, but I have to say something because it’s scary as _fuck.”_

So Hongjoong didn’t know. Huh.

Seonghwa nor Wooyoung told him.

Huh.

Huh.

That was the day when San broke.

Finished the conversation in Hongjoong’s studio— _I’m fine, hyung, just tired,_ of which Hongjoong didn’t believe a word—had come home, listened to his music in the backseat of their car, hummed a tune to himself, walked into their room, said hi to Yunho, took off his sweater, jumped into bed, and then... nothing.

There was nothing.

He had sobbed so hard, so ugly, hoarse cries out of his chest and rubbing his throat raw as Yunho held him to his body and whispered comforts in his ear. San had desperately held onto his sweater and had scared himself with the raw sounds coming out of him, hadn’t known what to do, nothing... hadn’t known anything except that it _hurt,_ and he had thought of Wooyoung, and found him so far away in his thoughts and in his mind already, almost like remembering him after months...

And that had hurt even more.

Because San was hurting, and he didn’t even know who he was hurting for.

Wooyoung had heard, San was sure. And for the first time ever, when Wooyoung walked into the kitchen and saw San standing there, probably with his eyes rimmed red from how much they burned, his scratchy throat... Wooyoung didn’t reach out for comfort.

He had turned around and left.

San had heard him crying that same night, in Seonghwa’s room at 4 AM, when Hongjoong was still not home, and whatever piece of his heart might have been rebuilt—whether it had, San didn’t know—shattered into a million pieces.

Wooyoung had tried. Had gotten drunk once, and kissed him so hard that San couldn’t feel his lips, could only taste desperation.

Hongjoong had walked into the kitchen right then, and Wooyoung hadn’t even spared him a look as he headed out. Only San was left pressed against the counter with Hongjoong’s gaping mouth in his direction.

 _Kind of late for you to finally get it, huh?_ San had held back from saying because Hongjoong wasn’t guilty of anything, and certainly not deserving of San’s confused darkness searching for a target.

San surely wanted to barge into Wooyoung’s room and let it all out on him.

_I’m so awful that you have to try to get yourself to like me, and you can’t even do it while trying this hard._

The words had played around in San’s head that whole night, staring up at the ceiling while it did hit him.

That he had actually lost his best friend.

Somewhere, they started hating each other.

Somewhere, just as he wished, something had _changed_.

San huffed, turning on his side and staring at the wall in the darkness.

The pain steadily continued to blossom in his chest, as present as before. _That_ hadn’t changed.

_I’m leaving._

_I’m taking a break._

_I’m heading home for a bit._

_I need a while._

_I can’t go on like this._

_I need to fix myself._

_I need to find myself._

_I need to lose myself._

_I can’t pull it off._

_I’m going, I think. For good, maybe._

_A while at least._

A list on the ceiling, added to everyday, of the many ways San wanted to break it to them.

But it turned out Mingi needed it more, so San couldn’t do that to him, to the rest of them. So he turned the page on the wall, a blank one now pasted to its cracks, and wondered if there was anything else to write on it that would make it easier to keep going when there was no other choice _but_ to keep going.

San hasn’t yet found what that is.

Now, as he looks at the man he both loves and hates most across the room, splayed in Seonghwa’s lap, pain just as agonizing as that first day, he doesn’t think he will.

He still wants to kiss him. Would, if Wooyoung asked. If Wooyoung really wanted it, if Wooyoung suddenly fell for him, San would. Would erase all the pain of the past months, the past _years_ , and would give himself fully, entirely, openly if it means he would be Wooyoung’s.

He’s sure it would work out too—they are perfect for each other. They’ve always been.

He smiles. Wooyoung shifts in Seonghwa’s lap.

San regrets it. He regrets it all.

But he will go on—drifting on the waves, swayed by their ebbs and flows into the darkening sunset.

Hoping that one day, there will be a shore where he can swim to. Set his anchor down, and breathe without the fear of water invading his lungs as he sees the first sunrise after a long period of darkness.

Until then, the pitch-black night awaits.

_“I love you, Wooyoung. For real.”_

_“San-ah...”_


End file.
